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Like his older brother, Édouard Vuillard was actually supposed to pursue a military career. A sensible decision would have been to join the French army: The young Vuillard lost his father at 20. His mother had to watch her family make ends meet. She worked in a corset workshop and made a modest living for the family. But as a secondary school pupil, Édouard was in contact with musicians and painters and decided to pursue an artistic career during his frequent visits to the Louvre.
It was to be motifs from his mother's working class milieu and domestic scenes that would make Édouard famous a few years later in the 1890s. His mother and sister were his main models, whom he depicted in front of patterned wallpaper. "I don't do portraits. I paint people in their homes," said Édouard Vouillard about his interiors. His two-dimensional representations of people seem to be woven into the background. André Guide described Vouillard's style as intimism.
Vouillard developed the tendency towards abstraction in 1888/89 when he joined the Nabis, a rebellious group of young art students in Paris. According to the "méthode synthésiste" of his founder Paul Sérusier, Vouillard painted more from memory and his own imagination.
Vouillard also made a name for himself as a theatre decorator, designing sets for Ibsen, Strindberg and Maeterlinck. He also designed large-format decorative panels on which he depicted public gardens. He remained active as an artist until 1930.
Like his older brother, Édouard Vuillard was actually supposed to pursue a military career. A sensible decision would have been to join the French army: The young Vuillard lost his father at 20. His mother had to watch her family make ends meet. She worked in a corset workshop and made a modest living for the family. But as a secondary school pupil, Édouard was in contact with musicians and painters and decided to pursue an artistic career during his frequent visits to the Louvre.
It was to be motifs from his mother's working class milieu and domestic scenes that would make Édouard famous a few years later in the 1890s. His mother and sister were his main models, whom he depicted in front of patterned wallpaper. "I don't do portraits. I paint people in their homes," said Édouard Vouillard about his interiors. His two-dimensional representations of people seem to be woven into the background. André Guide described Vouillard's style as intimism.
Vouillard developed the tendency towards abstraction in 1888/89 when he joined the Nabis, a rebellious group of young art students in Paris. According to the "méthode synthésiste" of his founder Paul Sérusier, Vouillard painted more from memory and his own imagination.
Vouillard also made a name for himself as a theatre decorator, designing sets for Ibsen, Strindberg and Maeterlinck. He also designed large-format decorative panels on which he depicted public gardens. He remained active as an artist until 1930.